


A History of Reasons

by innerglow



Series: A History of Reasons [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherly Love, Childhood Memories, Episode: s10e23 My Brother's Keeper, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-15 13:50:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4609110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innerglow/pseuds/innerglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(10x23 au)</p><p>The Winchesters’ lives hang in the balance, as the fate of the world lies in their hands.   Insurmountable odds have Dean ready to cross the golden line he’s always sworn never to cross and Sam is ready to (once again) sacrifice his life for the world.  And as time runs out, together they both recall memories of their past. </p><p>Memory by memory, the history of who they are and what they mean to each other, realigns.   Will the love that once saved the world, now destroy it, as the Brothers struggle to save each other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My second bang of sorts is finally here! I worked really hard on this and put a lot of my heart into the weavings of this fic. As it started to take shape, I started calling it 'my love letter to my boys' and I truly hope that you enjoy reading it!
> 
> I want to give a great big shout out to Marci, who did an amazing job with running this years [Wincest Big Bang](http://wincestbigbang.tumblr.com)! Thank you for your time and incredible amounts of dedication and patience! 
> 
> Also, thank you to my lovely artist, [txdora](http://txdora.tumblr.com). It was great working with you and I can't thank you enough for bringing my words to life! I know it's your first bang, and I just want to say--you did wonderfully! 
> 
> Thank you to, [Sarah](http://patchworkgirlfriend.tumblr.com), for giving my fic a once over and helping me with beta'ing!
> 
> Special thanks goes to my lovely cheerleaders, [Lullys](http://codependentsamanddean.tumblr.com) and [Rose](http://whoaeasytiger.tumblr.com). Without you guys, this thing probably would never have been finished. Thank you for reading this thing over and offering suggestions and encouragement. You guys are lifesavers and this fic would be nothing without your guys' support!

  **[Read Fic on LJ](http://buticankarriyou.livejournal.com/3302.html)** | **[Art Masterpost](http://tx-devilorangel.livejournal.com/1027.html) ([Ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4605543))** | [ **Tumblr Post**](http://jerk-bitch.com/post/128763868952/a-history-of-reasons-a-2015-wincestbigbang)

"It’s hard to say who needs the other more.  The sun, or the flower?  

It could be argued that the flower needs the sun more.  Without the sun, it would lie dormant, left to die a seed and nothing more.  If it wasn’t for the sun’s gracious rays, nurturing it from the start, coaxing it to break free and reach for the sky, it would be nothing of what it could become.  

But maybe, it is the sun that needs the flower more.  For what is the sun, if it has no purpose, no reason to rise it’s head every day?  What reason would it have to loyally rule the sky, if nothing reached back for it?  What is the sense in loving, if nothing loves you back?

Maybe in the end, they need each other with the same ferocity.  Perhaps, that’s how the sunflower came to be."  

___________________

 

“You don’t need to do this,” Sam reaches for the right words.  “You don’t need to die.”

Sam doesn’t know what he was expecting when he got here, but this--this isn’t it.   

Dean stares back at him, cold and calculating.  There’s no emotion, just a decision made.  And once Dean has made up his mind about something, it’s usually too late.   But Sam refuses to let Dean do this, to let him take his life when he’s this close to getting the cure from the book.  

“Truth is, when I left,” Dean begins apathetically.  “I thought the only way out was _my_ death, but I was wrong, Sam.”

Sam wants to find comfort in these words, but there’s an emptiness in Dean’s eyes that makes him sweat profusely.  

“It’s _yours_.”

 

~//~

 

_Sam stretches his limbs outwards and he feels his bones move, his muscles sighing reverently as they pull._

_“Keep your eyes closed,” Dean whispers._

_Sam doesn’t think he can possibly pinch his eyes tighter, his eyelashes tangling hopelessly together already, his eyes watering slightly from the pressure.   He tells himself to relax, it’s what Dean said is the most important thing to remember.  And Sam is trying to remember this, again and again, with every breath that circulates within his lungs._

_Maybe his arms aren’t long enough yet, maybe his legs aren’t level enough, or maybe like all else, he’s just not meant to succeed at this.  And the minute he lets these thoughts walk in, he can feel his body jerk as it inevitably starts to sink again._

_He starts fighting and it’s a losing battle, it is every time.  He should know this much by now, but apparently he hasn’t learned his lesson quite yet._

_There’s a sigh beside him and it’s a patient exasperation.  It’s followed by warm pressure on his back, steadying his body and raising him up._

_“Relax,”  Dean instructs.  “You almost had it.”_

_Sam wants to tell him that he’s just not meant for this.  That maybe he’s going to be condemned for the rest of his life to be a failure.  Just tally it up on the board of things he already sucks at._

_“I’ve got you,” Dean soothes.  “I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you.  I promise.”_

_The words spilling off of Dean’s tongue are warm and comforting.  Sam lets each vowel and consonant soak into his skin, lets his chest breathe in deeply and slowly exhale.  The sun may very well be out, her crown of rays tickling the length of Sam’s skin, but Dean’s presence will always feel brighter to him.  Will always feel warmer.  Safer._

_With eyes still closed, Sam reaches his limbs out once again and he just lets Dean carry him a bit longer.  He focuses on exactly where each calloused pad is burning into the ridges of his spine and it makes the baby hairs on the back of his neck stand up._

_Dean is his anchor, his roots.  He is the one thing, no--the only thing, that keeps Sam safely planted into the ground.  Without him--well, Sam just doesn’t want to think about that._

_But Sam does let his thoughts go some place else.  He thinks about how Dean has always been carrying him.  It’s always been him.  Always.  Sam doesn’t remember a time when those arms weren’t around him, weren’t holding him up, weren’t carrying him constantly away from danger._

_And the deeper Sam goes with his thoughts, the more he thinks about his life and how he hopes he never has to live a day where Dean doesn’t carry him in some form or another.  Because Sam knows in his chest, knows it deep to the core of his being, that he won’t survive without Dean there to carry him when he needs it._

_Dean’s breath hitches beside him and it’s enough to pull Sam back to the present.   He can tell Dean wants to say something, but he’s holding his tongue.  And Sam is about to ask why when he realizes:_

_Dean’s hands are gone and he’s floating on his own._

_Sam opens his eyes and he finds himself staring straight up into the proud, clover-green eyes of his Brother.  It’s such a beautiful sight, that it completely takes Sam’s breath away.  And he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it at first, but he finds himself praying that he can live under the light of Dean’s eyes, just like this--forever._

_Take away the sun, the moon, the goddamned stars in the sky.  Sam doesn’t need any of it, as long as he has Dean looking at him like this.  As if Sam roped everything beautiful in this world and gave it to Dean._

_“Sammy…” Dean works out of his mouth._

_And Sam doesn’t know if it’s the fact that he’s finally floating by himself in a random motel pool in The-Middle-Of-Nowhere, USA or if it’s because he just realized that his older Brother is the only goddamn sun he’ll ever need in his life, but damn--he feels weightless._

_Goddamned weightless.  And free._  

 

~//~

 

Sam isn’t sure why it’s that memory that he goes to, not when he has 32 years worth of other shit he could reach for first.  It doesn’t seem important in the moment, doesn’t even seem remotely relevant. But maybe nothing seems relevant and/or important in a time like this.  

All his life, he’s waited for this moment, which is kind of hilarious when he thinks about all the roads he’s been down.  He’s gone out a number of ways along the path to this precise moment in time, and they all seem largely more important than what now stares him in the face.  But in the same, perhaps all those other times weren’t as important as this one.  

He’s gone out with a knife wedged into his spine, and sometimes there are nights that he still lies awake and wonders what would have happened if Dean never made that deal to bring him back.   It could be argued that a lot of good could have come out of him being salted and burned back then, but that’s not how his story goes.    

Then, there was that time he sacrificed his life, with the Devil inside of him.  An eternity in hell with Lucifer didn’t scare him as much as leaving his Brother alone.  That’s why he made Dean promise to go find Lisa.  He was content with his choice, was sure in his fate to tango with Lucifer for the rest of his soul’s miserable days.  He made his peace with that, a tiny beaded thought in the back of his brain even suggesting that it’s what he deserved.  But again, he was brought back.   

He was so close to shutting the gates.  In fact, he could feel his body shutting down, could tell that it would be his skin and bones that would be the very lock that would keep those gates cemented shut for the rest of time.  Another sacrifice, but one he would gladly make, if only the world could learn to forgive all his sins.  He was happy to cleanse the earth of evil and truth be told, he knew it included himself, too.  But Dean couldn’t let him go.  

And now, Sam stands in front of his Brother, his sun, his everything, and for the first time in his life, he’s scared to die.  

 _'Please, I don’t want to go like this.’_  He thinks, a shiver of terror sailing across his chest.  

 

~//~

 

_Sam wanted a lot of things, but knew not to ask for them.  It was something that he understood more and more as he grew up._

_But sometimes, Dean would surprise him._

_“I know I told you we needed to go to the library to do some research on a case for Dad,” Dean speaks up suddenly, his body humming with adrenaline.  His smile wicked, because he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to do, such as going against strict orders.  “But I thought we could take a detour today, what do you say?”_

_It doesn’t take a lot to convince Sam, he was already on board when Dean made the sharp u-turn a few blocks back, that already indicated they weren’t going to the library._

_"Where are we going?” He asks, knowing already that Dean could tell him anything and he would be content with it._

_Dean just looks over and smiles and Sam feels his chest tighten with something he doesn’t even have a name for.  But he smiles back and Dean responds with the loud gun of the engine._

_Twenty minutes later, Sam is sitting front row (even though Dean hates sitting that close and will be complaining about his neck for the next one-hundred miles) at a matinee showing of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, with a large popcorn, peanut m &m’s (his favorite), and a large coke.  It feels like Christmas.  Better than that, really, considering the state of their past holidays.  _

_Sam had been nervous at all the money Dean was forking over, even told Dean that he didn’t need the m &m’s.  But Dean bought the m&m’s while Sam was walking away and handed them over when they finally decided on their seats.  And there was something in Dean’s smile that told Sam to not worry about it.  _

_Two hours and some minutes later, Sam is watching the credits roll and he feels like he’s on top of the world.  He fucking loves dinosaurs, has ever since the first movie and God,  this movie was epic!_

_He’s so caught up in the millions of thoughts flying through his head, that he doesn’t even notice the lights go up or when the theatre is empty except for just them.  It’s not until he feels Dean’s hand on his forearm, that he is jolted away from the epic credit music and the reel of images in his mind._

_Sam looks over, a million watt smile etched into his face and he’s caught breathless by the look that is written across Dean’s features.  It’s a serene look, a look that is unguarded and honest.  It’s a look that Sam has found harder to chase as the years pass.  And so, it makes these moments even more priceless and Sam wishes he had the ability to freeze time--just so he could capture the undeniable look of happiness on Dean’s face._

_“We gotta go, Sammy.”  Dean softly says, a look of sadness pooling across his features._

_They’re walking past other theater doors, when Sam spots it.  He’s so caught up in the day that he forgets momentarily that he’s not allowed to ask for something like that.  But the question is off his tongue and in the air before he can stuff it back down his throat._

_Dean looks over at the photobooth and back at Sam.  And Sam knows he shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have been that greedy, shouldn’t have asked for more than what he already got today.  It was already too much and Sam knows that with every fiber of his being._

_“Nevermind, Dean.  It’s fine, forget I asked.  Today has already been great, thank you!”  Sam tries desperately to fix the situation._

_But Dean just throws his arm around his shoulder and leads him over to the photo booth, completely ignoring Sam’s words.  They just hang awkwardly in the air behind them and Dean, God bless him, he’s chuckling._

_“I’m serious…” Sam starts._

_“Sammy, it’s fine.  We’re already here and it’s just four dollars more, it’s not the end of the world.”  Dean’s already fished out the dollar bills and is shoving Sam inside the booth, making it clear that there’s nothing more to argue over._

_Sam stares up at all the options and waits for what seems like an eternity inside the booth.  For a second he thinks that maybe Dean is waiting for him to be done, but that’s not what he want--_

_“Ready?”_

_Sam watches as his Brother pulls the curtain back to allow himself in.  Dean sits next to him, his leather jacket brushing against Sam’s bare arms.  And when Dean is settled, it’s a tight fit for both of them to be in there.  If it was anyone else, it might be uncomfortable, but Sam can’t help but feel completely at ease.  Because this is all he’s ever known.  He’s always been in Dean’s pocket and he can’t help but pray he never outgrows the space that Dean keeps for him._

_Dean presses a few buttons and a countdown appears on the screen.  A flash goes off and it’s just them staring at the camera with little to no expression on their faces.  The countdown returns and Sam turns to stick his tongue out at Dean.  Dean makes a silly face at the camera and the flash goes off.  The countdown returns and Dean reaches down to tickle Sam’s side.  Sam lurches hard to the right, banging into the side of the booth, laughing with a pained expression on his face and the flash goes off.  The countdown returns and Sam catches Dean just staring at him.  It’s an intense stare, something different in an unsettling way and the flash goes off.  The countdown returns and Sam barely has time to think, before Dean’s hands are at his face, their lips crashing together clumsily and the flash goes off._

_Sam will remember this moment for the rest of his life, because it will mark two very important things in his life.  The first is, that it’s then that he realizes he’s always been in love with his Brother, he just never knew how to define it until then.  And the second is, this will be the first of only a handful of kisses they’ll ever share._

_When Dean hands Sam the photo strip, he is blushing slightly and it only makes Sam’s cheeks heat in response.  He looks down at the strip and he sees them as they are to the world and how they are to each other._

_“I know it’s late, but Happy Birthday, Sammy.”_

_And just like that, the picture strip becomes Sam’s most prized possession._  

 <3 Artwork Comissioned From: [hellhoundsprey](http://hellhoundsprey.tumblr.com) & added December 2016! <3

~//~

 

Sam tries using his fists to break Dean from whatever spell The Mark has on him, but that only ends with Dean beating the heck out of him, leaving him cowering on the floor.  

Of course that doesn’t work, Sam isn’t entirely surprised, but it was worth the shot.  

Dean looks down at him and Sam searches desperately for any fleck of hope that may somehow linger in the depths of Dean’s eyes.  This can’t be it, this just can’t be how their story ends, not after all of this.  It just can’t be.  

No.  Just no.  

“Dean…” Sam tries, but his throat closes up with hysteria when Dean turns his back on him, letting Death step closer.  

Sam watches Dean, watches his shoulders bunch up and smooth back out.   And that’s enough for Sam to know that Dean is still fighting himself and The Mark.  

Death watches Sam’s gaze and turns around, tapping Dean on the shoulder and handing him his scythe.  “Please, do me the honor.”

Dean wraps his hand around the wooden length of it and steps in front of Death, staring blankly down at Sam.   

There’s an emotion there, something tangible and real and Sam clings to it with everything he has.  

But then, Dean says, “Close your eyes.”

 

~//~

 

_There’s many things Sam regrets, but this is perhaps the biggest thing._

_He’s staring down at the letter with Stanford’s letterhead and a congratulatory message written below it, with his name in big bold black letters.  Of course this isn’t the first time he’s seen this letter, but it’s the first time he looks at it with the heat of his Brother’s eyes burning holes through him.   Big, how-could-you-do-this-to-me holes--right into the side of his head._

_There’s a lot of things he wants to say, lots of things he wants to promise, but they all somehow get tangled up in the back of his throat.  Dean sighs where he sits and Sam feels his breath flow by him and it’s cold, cold and calloused.  They don’t have to vocalize it, because they both know that this simple letter has broken something between them.  Something big and yet something so delicate, it’s amazing it hasn’t been broken long before now._

_“You do what you gotta do, Sam.”_

_Dean scoots his chair back and the metal screeches across the linoleum of the hotel where they sit.  The grating noise, vibrates everything inside of Sam’s body.  His ribs, his throat, his heart, his lungs--everything.  And he wants to flinch, wants to coil in on himself when Dean uses just the short version of his name.  As though, saying Sammy would mean too much and well, maybe that’s exactly what is broken between them._

_Maybe it’s just that obvious._

_Sam knows what this means to Dean, knows exactly how his heart broke when he found the letter in his things, rather than Sam saying anything to him about it first.  It was written in his eyes when Sam walked in.  The I-thought-we-didn’t-keep-secrets-but-apparently-I-was-wrong shade of green casting Sam in darkness, in an unbearable shade of betrayal._

_The thing is, there were so many nights that Sam laid awake, staring at the ceiling and listening to the slight hmm’s and mrr’s of Dean’s sleepful breathing.  There were so many times he kept himself up, just trying to find the words, trying to find the right ways he could apply pressure to the wound this would undoubtedly cause his Brother.  And the more his lungs burned for freedom, the more his heart ached because it meant leaving the only person who ever truly mattered to him--_

_Dean._

_That’s truly where the root of the issue lies, because how does a shadow walk away from the body it is casted from?  How do you train rhythmic feet, to choose another direction, when they’ve only walked one way their entire life?  It seems impossible to separate the two, but Sam knows he’s gotta learn how.  That they both have to._

_Three days go by in painful and excruciating silence.  Sam starts to scratch at his fleshy wrists, wanting nothing more than to climb out of the skin that Dean can no longer look at him in.   And for the whole of those three days, Sam can’t bare to eat a thing, because everything he brings to his lips tastes like deceit, like letdowns, like heartbreak.  There’s enough of those things already circling around in the toilet bowl of his chest, there’s no need to bat the already raging fires._

_It’s not until the fourth day that something shifts yet again between them._

_They’re holed up in another hotel, approximately three-hundred miles away from the disaster hotel that started this nightmare roller coaster of silence.   From the moment the hotel door clicks behind them, there’s something more than just the razor sharp tension filling the air.  Sam would be lying if he said that it didn’t make his skin crawl, that it didn’t make his stomach feel like a fishbowl full of startled fish._

_There are no words exchanged as they both lose their boots, both pairs thudding to the ground with an unmistakable loudness.  Sam’s almost sure that the people four rooms down could hear them hit the ground, sounding more like atomic bombs than just worn out shoes._

_Sam’s got the covers halfway down on his bed, when he feels Dean’s presence directly behind him.  The heat between them, a familiar spark.   And god help him, his hands tremble as they curl around the edge of the flat sheet and haul it down to join the comforter.   He doesn’t know what Dean is doing, or even what he wants.  And more than that, he’s scared to turn around and face his Brother, to find out._

_Rough fingers find themselves in Sam’s shoulder, digging hard, as though they’re trying to bury themselves there forever.  As though the indentations they create, will soon be the gravestones for the bruises they will inevitably leave.  Sam lets out a shaky breath as another hand finds it’s way onto his hip and it’s that hand that pulls to twist him around, giving him no other choice but to look at the field of green that burns back at him._

_Dean is on a mission, Sam can tell that much, and his mouth dries as anxiety chases through his veins.  But Sam doesn’t get the chance to think more about what Dean is doing, because he’s being pushed back till the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed.  And even then, Dean is still pushing him, pushing him back onto the bed, pushing him into the bed as he climbs hastily on top of him, pushing him so far into the bed that Sam thinks for a moment that Dean is trying to plant him into the fucking ground._

_Hungry and desperate lips claim Sam’s and it makes the entire length of him shudder uncontrollably.  It’s a shallow kiss, full of teeth that nip and pull at Sam’s bottom lip.  As though Dean is fumbling with the combination lock at Sam’s mouth, trying to find the code that will part his lips and allow him fully in._

_There’s a growl in the back of Dean’s throat as his hand finds it’s way up and under Sam’s shirt.  And another feral sound when Dean presses his hips down, meeting the friction of Sam’s own._

_Sam is helpless in all of this, because fuck--it’s all he’s ever wanted.  It’s all he’s ever needed and here is Dean after all this time, here he is giving it to Sam.   And perhaps if the heat of Dean’s tongue wasn’t marching past his lips, he might have figured out the angle Dean was playing, before it was too late._

_But Sam, he is only human and when he comes in his jeans with the sweet pressure of Dean’s cock aligned with his, he can’t help but white out on the wing of sweet, sweet release.   It’s the greatest orgasm of his life and Dean hasn’t even touched him there once.  Not one fucking time.  Sam can’t help himself from immediately daydreaming about the type of intense orgasm they could achieve if they were completely sans clothes, if their hands could have complete freedom to roam each other’s skin._

_Sam comes back to reality when Dean hastily rolls off of him, the lack of his weight leaving Sam feeling hollowed out and empty.  Sam reaches for Dean, his fingers still aching from the lack of contact they’ve had with his Brother for the last few days.  But Dean just looks down at him with nothing more than a vacant and haunted expression painting his eyes._

_“Dean” Sam barely gets out._

_“Sam.”  Dean echoes, his voice wrecked with emotions._

_And Sam winces at his name, because it sounds so foreign coming out of his Brother’s mouth that way.   ‘Strike two..’ Sam thinks and he feels the heat of tears prick the back of his eyes, because he hates how broken they both are._

_They stare at each other and Dean is telling Sam something without saying it.  Almost begging him with his eyes wide open, like he has no other choice, but to beg--just like this.  Sam swallows and lets his eyes shamefully travel the length of his Brother, coming to notice that Dean’s pants are still tight around his aching cock._

_Dean never came, Sam realizes.  He didn’t let himself go that far, didn’t let himself get off on his little Brother, not in the same way Sam got off on him.  ‘Freak…’ Sam hears in his brain, because that is what he is after all._

_It’s then that Sam understands what this all was for.  The sticky wetness in his jeans feeling more and more dirty as the seconds pass.  This was Dean’s last ditch effort to get him to stay.  As though, if he could give Sam this one thing, the one that Dean always told Sam they couldn’t have, because it’s wrong, so wrong--that maybe he will change his mind and stay._

_It’s a surprise to them both when Sam bolts to the bathroom and empties everything he didn’t eat over the last few days into the porcelain confessional.  If Sam could literally scrape this need for Dean out of his body, if he could shed it like a snake skin, he would gladly worship the heavens above.   Because nothing is worse, nothing is as bad as these pitiful kisses that Dean gave to him, not because he wanted to give them, but because he simply didn’t know any other way to get Sam to stay._

_And Sam thinks, perhaps even convinces himself that if Dean had just asked, if he had just been honest, that maybe he could’ve found the resolve to stay.  That maybe he could have found the strength to be content with this bloody and cruel life they live.   He loves Dean that much, he would sacrifice his ride to Stanford, for Dean.  He would do it without question, would do it even though it would mean giving up the longed for normalcy he’s always craved._

_But after all of this, after Dean’s cheap kisses still burn into the hollows of Sam’s cheeks, it’s even more urgent that he leaves.  Because if they’re ever to love each other as they’re supposed to, not more, not like this--then this is the only way.  Staying would only mean letting the beast in his belly grow and if it outgrew him, it would swallow them both whole.  It would only make monsters out of the two of them.  And Sam tells himself that if he leaves, he’s saving them both.  Tells himself that Dean will be okay, that one day he’ll come to understand the very reasons of why he wanted to leave.  That deep down, they both needed for him to leave._

_~_

_Four months down the road, Sam is getting ready to board the bus to Stanford._

_To Sam’s surprise, Dean does kiss him true and honest on the lips.  It feels like the most real thing they’ve shared in months and for a second Sam feels like that fourteen year old kid in the photo booth all over again.  Feels like Dean is his entire world and that nothing could separate the two of them.  But then, he looks down and sees his bag at his feet and suddenly he’s somehow an astronaut getting ready to leave for outer space.  Getting ready to leave the only home he’s ever known._

_Dean leaves him with a rushed good luck and a fierce, protective hug.  Sam says he will call and Dean says that he better or else he’ll drive to California and beat his ass.  And Sam laughs, because doesn’t he know it._

_Sam’s ten miles down the road when his phone buzzes._

_**Dean:**  I love you._

_And just like that, Sam knows that everything will be okay.  The relief of this realization, springs tears into his eyes._

_**Sam:**  I love you, too._

 

~//~

 

Sam is looking up and he can’t help but find it a little ironic.   He’s always been looking up at Dean, always.  Always chasing his big Brother around, always searching for his light, for his comfort, for the arms that give him a home.  And god forbid that little piece of him that finds peace in this.  Because if he’s going to go out, then please by all means, let it be like this--as it should be, staring into the blinding light of ‘His Sun’.  

Dean is waiting for him to close his eyes, for Sam to get his fill, for Sam to find a way to be somehow okay with this.   Even if it goes against every cell in his body, against everything he’s always known. Dean waits for Sam to come to terms with the heavy hand that awaits him.  

Because it’s for the greater good.   Because it’s right.  Because, because, because.  

Sam watches Dean tentatively and feels the heat of desperate tears sting the back of his eyes.   

“Sammy, close your eyes.”  Dean asks again, his voice wavering slightly.  

The unspoken words that Dean wants to say, echoing into the air:

_‘Sammy please, don’t look at me, don’t watch me do this.   Close your eyes, my Brother, close your sweet, flowered eyes and think of us as we were.   Think of us as we were intended to be.  Not like this, never like this.  Close your eyes and see us back in that endless sunflower field back in Kansas.  Feel the heat of the sun on your cheeks and remember what it was to take comfort in the simple things. Close your eyes, Sammy.  Please, for all that is, close your eyes.  If not for you, please do it for me.’_

And even though they’re not spoken out loud, Sam watches as they build a bridge between the two of them, a last chance for him to get through.  Maybe he’s stupid for trying, but there’s nothing that’s gonna keep him from trying to cross it.  It’s all he’s got, there’s nothing left if he fails, nothing to lose if he doesn’t make it across.  If this is what it’s like to grasp at straws, then so be it--he’s grasping at straws.  

All he needs, is something--something to pull Dean onto this bridge.  Something to convince Dean to meet him halfway.  

 

~//~

 

_After Sam moves in with Jessica, the flowers start to appear at random points in time.  They don’t come on his birthday, don’t show up around Christmas.  In fact, they don’t show up during any holiday that other’s would celebrate, no they come on days that only him and Dean would know._

_A sunflower is left on his doorstep on October 18th and Jess finds it before Sam gets home from classes.  Her cheeks raise when she smiles, so sweetly, as she proclaims that he might have some competition.  She rattles on, about how she has a secret admirer, sticking her nose into the single stemmed flower and spinning it as she looks at him over it’s petals._

_He doesn’t tell her that when he was barely ten years old, him and his Brother visited a sunflower field in the middle of Kansas for the first time.  Doesn’t tell her that Dean sees sunflowers in his eyes. Doesn’t tell her about the time they kissed in the photo booth so many years ago.  Doesn’t even raise his eyes when the thoughts of his come soaked jeans, after he got off to the feel of his Brother against him, roll on through his head.  Doesn’t even flinch when his heart pulls and whines with that old familiar ache.  The one that tells him that he loves Jess, but that he’ll never be in love with her._

_Not like he is with Dean.  Not like he will always be, with Dean._

_Even if it’s wrong and sick, no matter how many times he hears Dean’s gentle whispers, ‘Sammy, we can’t.’   He’ll never be able to love another person the way he loves his Brother._

_Call it a blessing and a curse._

_Six months go by before another flower arrives on his doorstep.  It’s April 24th and he’s just finished his finals before he leaves with Jess for the coast, for spring break.   Jess is gone for the evening, having a girls night, and he hates himself for thanking the skies that she’s not around.  Thankful, because he closes his eyes and tries to smell the lingering scent of Dean’s familiar leather jacket in the air. Thankful, because tears escape his eyes when his nose comes up empty, when he can’t even feel the presence of his Brother by the doorstep, where he now stands. Thankful, because he presses the flower to his lips and pretends it’s Dean’s lips._

_April 24th, is the day Sam first got to sit behind the wheel of Dad’s and Dean’s beloved Baby.   Dad probably would have killed them if he knew that Dean had let Sam drive the car when he was barely 13 and still couldn’t see over the wheel or fully reach the pedals.   But they had found an empty lot in an old town and Dean got that wicked look in his eyes, the one that Sam waited and lived for, the one that told him that today--he was gonna feel alive._

_It was a big deal and Sam was nervous as he pressed gently into the accelerator.  But then, Dean’s hand came to rest on his thigh and it was hot and warm, and just enough to soothe the nervousness shooting through Sam’s body.   To Dean’s dismay, Sam drives like a grandma and he gives him ninety shades of hell for it.  In fact, it becomes an inside joke that would live on for years.  ‘Whoa there, Grandma!’  Dean would come to tease._

_Yet, it’s not exactly him driving the impala that marks this day as something to remember, even though Sam looks back on it with a fond smile.   It’s what happened later that night, when Dean and him had parked the car out in the middle of nowhere, right in the middle of a field, just to watch the stars.  Well, and of course, so Dean could light up like he did a lot back then._

_Sam had watched Dean smoke a hundred times, his tongue always hungry for the taste of the intoxicatingly sweet smoke that left his Brother’s lungs.  But he never dared to ask for it, never moved to take it--no, he just watched and wanted._

_So, when Dean took his jaw and brought his mouth within mere inches of his, his eyes dark and glassy as they stared down into Sam’s, it completely overwhelmed Sam as the smoke began to enter his open and waiting mouth.   It burned his throat and his lungs, but it was smooth enough to not make him cough._

_They both laid on the hood of baby and watched the stars, high and happy, content in being hopelessly tangled around each other, as though neither of them could have a single care in the world._

_If only for that one single moment in time._

_Sam smiles at the memory, smiles because of course Dean would remember the simple details of their past.  And Sam can’t help himself, he calls Dean that night as he waits for Jessica to get home, but Dean doesn’t pick up.  Typical.  Sometimes, words can only say so much and somehow not enough of the right things.  So Sam digs out his old weed tin and gets high by himself, for old time sakes._

_More flowers appear, and Sam saves them all.   He presses them into a big philosophy book that he studies with.  He keeps so many, that eventually his book looks like it’s more about horticulture then it is about the former._

_After the fire, after Jess, after everything he built within those few years is lost, he finds his philosophy book sitting in the rubble of his and Jess’ room and to his surprise, it’s completely untouched.  Sam cries when he finds it.  Big and loud sobs.   Cries so violent, it feels like his bones won’t withstand the storm of them.  Like he’s not strong enough to weather the destruction they rage within him._

_And of course, Dean looks at him and he looks lost, like he doesn’t know how to fix any of it._

_Dean stands there, with a hand on Sam’s shoulder, holding him up as he cries.  Dean thinks he cries for Jess, but what he’d never know is that actually cries with relief that these flowers remained safe._

_When Sam throws up later, it’s not because of grief, it’s because of guilt.  It’s because Jess deserved so much more, so much more than a boy who is stupidly in love with his Brother.   And he looks down at his hands gripping the toilet and feels the cold of the porcelain burn the pads of his fingers.  God, if he could rewind time, he’d never lay a hand on her in the first place._

_He should have known that a ‘happily ever after’ was never to be in the cards for him.  When you grow up on the road, with Hell nipping at your wheels, it doesn’t matter if you try to run away from it--it will always catch up with you._

 

~//~

 

Sam swallows the hysteria in his throat and reaches into his jacket pocket.

“Wait...wait.”  Sam catches Dean’s gaze and holds him there, silently pleading for him to give him a minute.   And Dean doesn’t move, doesn’t give him any indication that Sam has permission to ask for the few words he desperately needs to say.  But if this is it, Sam’s taking the time whether it’s his to have or not. 

Sam’s fingers find the familiar items in his pocket and pulls them out carefully.  Dean watches his hand as it moves steadily and with purpose.  Watches as it produces a folded up picture and a ziploc bag with something yellow inside.  

“Take these,” Sam offers, showing Dean what they are.

Sam unfolds the photo strip they took so many years ago, the paper now yellowed and creased with time, but still legible, are their young faces.   Sam places it on the ground at Dean’s feet and moves to add the second item in his hand.   It’s a dried sunflower from the ones Dean used to leave him.  When Sam lays it on the ground, he winces, because the fight between them had pulled most of  the fragile petals off of it’s head.  

“And one day, when you find your way back--let these be your guide.  They can help you remember what it was to be good.” Sam’s voice is strong and sure, even though his insides quake with grief.  

Dean looks down, looks first at the yellow petals, the ones that used to look more like a sunflower then it does now.   Sam watches as Dean’s eyes soften while he looks at it, watches as Dean’s eyes move over to the photograph that Sam’s kept all these years.   It’s probably the first time Dean’s seen it since it was taken, he probably never even thought Sam would still have it.   Sam watches as Dean swallows, his adam’s apple dipping shakily before returning to its throne in Dean’s throat.   

Sam stares up at him and waits for Dean to come back to him, waits for the sun he’s always followed to come alive again, to warm his face with his smile.   But Sam sees the clouds in Dean’s eyes, sees the fight on Dean’s face, can tell he’s close to the edge of either destruction or clarity and that it’s a winds blow, that could send him tumbling either way.  

And suddenly Sam knows, that it’s gonna take more than the two things he’s already placed on the floor, to bring Dean the rest of the way home to him.

 

~//~

 

_Sam watches as his entire life flashes before his eyes, watches as a million fragmented memories come and go, watches as the history of Dean and him comes pulsing excruciatingly to a halt right before him._

_Everything in him knows this was coming, knows it was bound to happen eventually.  After all, hope is a light that can burn out, just like faith is a ribbon that can be cut.   And here they both go, hand in hand, going out and getting cut._

_Sam wishes he could close his eyes and rewind time, to go back to the start of all these messed up roads they’ve traveled upon.   To go back to a simpler time, when happiness didn’t feel like a figment of a blind-fool’s imagination.  Back when a promise still weighed more than the river of deceit that now flows below both of their feet._

_The golden horned amulet tumbles from Dean’s fist and it swings back and forth like a pendulum.  Sam watches and waits.  Waits for it to disengage from Dean’s hopeless hands, waits for it to go sailing into the darkness of the waste bin below it._

_Dean hesitates, or maybe he waits on purpose, just to make sure Sam sees, to make sure Sam gets exactly what is happening.  It feels like centuries pass, the tick of the clock on the wall and the crash of broken heartbeats, echoing against the four walls of another uninspired hotel room._

_Sam watches and he remembers the day Dean first put it on.  Remembers Dean’s trembling fingers as he opened the cartoon newspaper wrapping paper, his fingers aching visibly with want, with the need to have.  Dean so starved for simple things, like Christmas gifts, that he would have cherished anything he unwrapped.  But when his eyes catch the golden glint of the amulet, his eyes light up brighter than any Christmas tree Sam could have wanted._

_‘I love it,’ Sam remembers Dean saying and Sam echoed his reply in his thoughts, ‘I love you.’_

_Over the course of the next twenty or so years, the amulet doesn’t leave Dean’s body more than a handful of times.  It’s there through everything, absolutely everything.  A shining reminder, emblazoned upon Dean’s chest, of how much he loves Sam.  Of how much they love each other._

_Twenty years, and it takes less than one to give Dean more reasons to take it off, than to keep it on._

_The second it leaves Dean’s hands, Sam swears his heart stills in his aching chest.  As though, it too shivers in the wake of the impending heartbreak that it will leave behind.   Sam watches as it falls, watches as the black cord curls and the gold face staring back at him sinks it like an anchor, into the bottom of the trashcan.   And if Sam flinches with the loud echoing clang of it finally reaching the bottom, no one would know it but him, because Dean is already gone._

_There goes all hope.  There goes all faith.  There goes Dean.  There goes everything._

_And it leaves Sam cold and alone, straight down to his bones._

_Dean honks the horn with impatience, waiting for Sam to follow him on out, wanting nothing more than to forget this town and everything associated with it.  And Sam knows that Dean isn’t beyond leaving him at this point, if he takes longer than necessary.  But, he just can’t walk out that door without--_

_Sam hovers over the trashcan, stares into its jaws like it’s another monster of the week he has to defeat.  And he knows Dean doesn’t want it anymore, that wearing it another day would only weigh him down with false hope and faith that doesn’t mean a thing.  Knows Dean can’t look at it without thinking about the millions of reasons he took it off in the first place._

_But God help him, Sam can’t leave it.  He just can’t._

_He reaches into the trash bin and lets his hands scoop it up and out.  It feels heavy, feels almost too heavy to carry, but he’s beyond caring about the weight of it.  He holds it up in his hand and watches as the sun catches it, his eyes squinting at the brightness of it and that’s when he swallows, because the dam of tears he’s been holding back, is starting to give._

_Sam settles for putting it in his pants pocket at first, but it feels like it could burn an imaginary hole there.  So he pulls it back out and stuffs it in his jackets pocket instead, only to fret that it might fall out and that he’ll lose it for sure.  Forever._

_Resigned, he holds it up and pulls it over his head, letting it settle onto his chest.   It hasn’t been on him in this way, since Dean went to Hell.  And Sam has to clear his throat, trying to scare off the tears, because he just can’t think about that time.   Instead, he pulls his t-shirt away from his chest and lets the amulet come to rest against his bare skin.   At least it will be out of sight there, at least Dean won’t know he retrieved it._

_And Sam would be lying if he said his feet didn’t fall heavier onto the floor as he left for the impala.  Would be lying, if he said he didn’t feel heavier for years, because of it.  Wearing the amulet in secret, hiding it in his things, keeping it out of sight and choosing to bear the impossible weight of their love (for the moment and forever, if needed), so Dean wouldn’t have to._

_‘But, maybe one day,’ Sam promised himself over and over again for the next several years.  ‘Maybe one day, Dean will want to wear it again.’_

_And just like that, hope is relit and faith, recomposed._

 

~//~

 

Sam looks up and he smiles, bright and honest, his eyes penetrating the back of Dean’s skull as he tries to find the strength he needs for his last act.  And when Sam feels it’s right, which is laughable given the circumstances, he reaches up under the collar of his flannel and t-shirt.  His fingers touch the familiar black cord and they wrap around it like a lifeline.  

Pulling it over his head, he lets the gold face come to rest in his hand and lets it stare back at him.  His lungs struggle through a sigh as he reaches out to the same Heaven that condemned him so long ago.  He hasn’t done it in years, but fuck if now is not as good a time as any to try again.  And so, he prays with everything in him that this will work.  

That Dean will find the strength to hold on to life, to him, and to them.

“And maybe, one day,” Sam starts and then lets the amulet dangle from his fingers, so Dean can see.  “This can help you remember what it was, to love.”

Dean’s hands tighten around the wood handle of Death’s scythe and his eyes harden with emotion as the golden face he used to know, stares back up at him.   And he looks from it, up into the pleading eyes of his Brother and he sees the lifeline within them.  

 

~//~

 

_Dean watches as Sam leaves the house with Melanie White and the smile carved into his face, starts to falter.  Because, yes, he talked Sam into going--told him he’d make sure they stayed long enough to let him go.  Even spent the last of his cash, buying Sam a nice tux from one of the second hand stores in town._

_And it was all fine, fine until Sam looked over his shoulder and gave him this haunted look.   One that bit its way straight to Dean’s core and filled his stomach with an incredible ache.  Because yes, if they lived in a different world, where rules didn’t exist for the way things should be between them, then of course--he would have been the one going to prom with his Brother._

_But no, Melanie White gets the honor and so yea, maybe he hates her a little for it._

_It’s not until an hour passes, that Dean gets a call from Sam saying he’s bored (even if his voice is more sad than it is bored) and that he’s gonna just walk back to the house.   Dean offers to come get him, but Sam declines the offer and just says something cheap like, "It’s nice out; good night for a walk."_

_Dean’s not sure what possesses him.  Not sure why he finds himself outside, digging in the impala’s trunk for his cheap ‘fbi suit’, and is definitely not sure why there’s a rising tide of urgency in his chest as he does it.  But, when he’s got the suit on and he’s got his hair gelled just so, like he’s going on a date, it’s only then than he steals a look into the mirror and asks himself just what the fuck he thinks he’s doing._

_And he almost lets his head talk him out of getting into the car, but his heart beats faster and stronger.  There’s simply no contest between the two.  So he turns the key and lets Baby come alive.  When he gasses the engine, he looks into the rear view mirror and thinks about how there’s no going back now._

_Dean finds Sam a few blocks away from the High School._

_Sam is walking, his face down, and with his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants.   He looks impossibly sad in the streetlights that fight to lick the shadows from his face.   And as Dean edges closer, he can’t help but feel his chest constrict at the sight.  In knowing that somehow, in some inexplicable way, that he is ultimately at the root for the cloud that Sam walks under._

_Dean pulls up next to the curb and leans over to open the passenger door.  “Get in.”_

_Sam stops at the abrupt pound of the impala’s engine and stares into the darkness of the impala with sorrow in his eyes.   “Let me walk, Dean.  Please.”_

_Dean swears under his breath, his heart hammering a million miles an hour.  “Just get in, Sammy, c’mon.”_

_And here they are, both pleading with the other to listen._

_There’s an endless moment where neither of them move,  and the street is quiet aside from their breaths  and the rumble of baby’s purr.   They’re both steeled in their resolve to get their way, and they both wait for the other to give, but no one is giving in tonight._

_Just when Dean is getting ready to get out and haul his stubborn ass Brother into the passenger seat, whether he wants to go or not, Sam steps closer to the car with a sigh from his lips, still heavy in the air.   Dean feels his lungs squeeze as the warmth from Sam’s body tucks into the car, into the place he’s always been (and Dean hopes he’ll always be) and he can’t tear his eyes away from the backs of his hands, that are wrapped around the steering wheel, like a drowning man clings to his buoy._

_He only manages to look at Sam, when he feels question marks burning into the side of his head._

_“Why’re you dressed up?”  Sam’s eyes drag across the worn fbi suit and back up to Dean’s gelled hair._

_The question is out and Dean feels like it’s too big for the interior of the car.  Feels like the question itself is crushing him against the driver’s side window, feels like it’s so big and bold, that his tongue does nothing more than march itself into the back of his throat.   He stares at Sam, his eyes blank slates, if Sam’s expression is anything to go by._

_“Whatever, lets just go.”_

_Dean doesn’t need more motivation to put Baby into drive and tear on down the street.  All he needs is a few blocks to muster the courage to tell Sam why he’s dressed up, why he was so hellbent on picking him up, why every fiber in Dean’s body is a thousand times sorry for the hollowed look on Sam’s face as he walked down the street._

_Fifteen minutes later, they’re flying by the city limits sign and heading out into the darkness, on a back road out of town.   Dean catches how Sam’s hands grip around his knees, squeezing and releasing, like he’s trying to worry something away into the fabric of his pants.   Sam’s nervous.   And that makes two of them, because Dean’s heart is in his throat and he has absolutely no idea what the fuck he’s doing, he’s just letting the road lead him to wherever it may take them._

_Another ten minutes on down the road, there’s a side road that leads away from the main road.   Dean swerves to take it, hearing Sam’s mumbled profanities as he grips at the handle on the door, to keep from sliding over into Dean._

_“Where the fuck are we going, Dean?”_

_Dean doesn’t answer.   He still doesn’t know._

_Just a bit up the road, there’s a clearing.  A big field spreads out and he parks Baby right at the edge of it.   To anyone else, this would all look planned, but it’s actually a fucking miracle this field even exists all the way out here.   Dean thanks the stars above for letting him find this little gem of a place.   It’s perfect.   Well, as perfect as it’s going to get._

_Dean turns Baby off, but leaves the lights on.  And then, he reaches over Sam, into the glovebox and pulls out a cassette tape.   He doesn’t think much more about it, he puts it in the tape deck and turns the radio up on full blast._

_And without further ado, he’s out of the car and pacing himself over to Sam’s side of the car, with a do or die feeling creeping up his spine.   It’s now or never.   Because, maybe Dean can’t give Sam everything that he wants, but he can give him this.    It’s gotta count for something in the nicks of time, at least that’s what he tells himself when he opens Sam’s car door and offers his hand._

_“Can I have this dance?” His voice is soft and barely audible, as though they’re confessions that the world is too fragile to handle._

_Sam looks up at him from under the curtain of his bangs and there’s so many questions there, like ‘what does this mean?’,  ‘what are you asking?’.   But Sam looks at Dean’s waiting hand and sees how it shakes ever so slightly and swallows every last one of them down.   Maybe he does it for Dean, maybe he does it for himself, but he does it no matter what._

_They make their way into the field, right into the glow of Baby’s headlights.  And when they turn to face each other, their hands still clasped, the first notes of a song start to play._

_**‘When you were here before, couldn’t look you in the eye.’** _

_Dean stares into Sam’s eyes and he bores the words coming from the impala’s radio, into the back of Sam’s head._

_**‘You’re just like an angel, your skin makes me cry.’** _

_Sam’s fingers curl tighter around Dean’s as they step closer, their bodies aligning together._

_**‘You float like a feather, in a beautiful world.’** _

_Dean pulls Sam the rest of the way into him, lets his left hand wander around to Sam’s back, coming to rest just above his waist.   The heat of Sam’s body is overwhelming and dangerous, every nerve in Dean’s body is calling out warnings.   But Dean doesn’t pull away, doesn’t do anything but hold Sam to his chest and somehow convinces his feet to start moving beneath them._

_Sam is a hair taller than Dean, but he still folds himself into Dean’s arms, his face ear to ear with Dean’s.   It’s as though Sam is a caterpillar and Dean’s arms are the cocoon.   They’re  fit to mold to each other._

_**‘And I wish I was special; you’re so fucking special.’** _

_Dean feels his lips move with the words, feels himself whisper the line into Sam’s ear.   And Sam curls closer to Dean, lets his head rest in the crook of Dean’s neck._

_For the rest of the song, they sway quietly with nothing but the headlights of the car they’ve always called home, illuminating them like stars in the midnight sky of the field they stand in.   The song hangs in the air, written in the cursive of Dean’s breath against the nape of Sam’s neck.  It’s the closest thing to a love letter Dean can write, because even though their bodies crave to close the lingering spaces between them, there are certain lines that should never be crossed.   And more than that, Dean doesn’t want to stain the beauty of Sam, with the wrongness that beats in his own chest._

_**‘I don’t belong here.’**     _

_It’s the last line and Dean pulls away just enough to find Sam’s lips and to kiss him boldly and with meaning._

_**‘I don’t belong here.’** _

_It echoes one last time in the air, and Dean breaks the kiss and gives Sam a half smile.   Sam’s lips falter at first, his lip quivering slightly, but eventually he pins a smile to his face.   Dean watches the tears in the corners of Sam’s eyes and knows in the core of his being that Sam understands what this all means._

_That maybe in a different world, maybe in some far off galaxy--or perhaps in a different life, they could be more.   But in the world that they live in, they can only be this as they are and nothing more._

_For the first time,  Dean watches as Sam understands it’s not because he doesn’t want it, it’s because he feels Sam deserves better._

_Sam’s eyes reflect little moons of light back at Dean and it’s like Sam is trying to tell him something without saying a word.   But if Dean were to put words to Sam’s look, it would say--’There’s no such thing as ‘Better’, when you already have ‘The Best’’._

_And Dean’s heart quietly whispers back, ‘Ditto.’_

 

~//~

 

Dean feels his chest tighten around an emotion that is so strong in it’s course that it almost knocks the breath right out of his lungs.   He looks down and sees Sam kneeling before him, looks at the ground and sees their memories scattered by his own feet and then back up, to see the desperate look woven across Sam’s features.

The darkness roaming through his veins, comes to a screeching halt.   For the first time in months, maybe longer, he feels a true emotion embark across his heart.   And it is stronger and more powerful than The Mark that taints his arm.  

It’s like coming up for water, when you’ve been drowning for so long.  A moment of clarity, of sobriety.   Dean exhales and feels the tension in his shoulders dissipate.   He looks at his Brother and he wants to fall to his knees and mutter a thousand apologies.   Wants to say so many things, that the words traffic jam in the back of his throat.

But then Death comes from behind him and a strike of terror creeps back up Dean’s neck and just like that the darkness takes control again.  

Just like that, he’s underwater and screaming.   And yet, his mouth betrays him.  

“Forgive me.”  Dean whispers.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dean laughs at the ridiculousness of this all.  Laughs because he once sold his soul to ensure the light in the sunflowered eyes he now stares into, would never go out. But now, here he stands, the very hand that will propel those eyes into an unforgivable darkness.  

There’s no coming back from that, no forgiveness great enough.  But still, he asks for it.  

Dean’s hands tighten around the wood of Death’s scythe and his fingers feel like hungry snakes as they curl around it for purchase.  

And Sam, bless him and all that he is, he gives one last heroic smile.   His dimples offer a ballad of unquestionable forgiveness and he carves the song into the back of Dean’s skull.  When he’s content, he sighs and bravely closes his eyes.  

 

~//~

 

_Dean wakes to the feeling of a sweaty hand lacing itself around his wrist._

_At first he flinches, his instincts readying him to fight, but then he sees Sam’s sleepy eyes looking down at him with tears brimming his lash line._

_“Bad dream?” Dean whispers and Sam replies by nodding furiously.  “Wanna talk about it?”_

_Sam’s bottom lip quivers at the question, his head shaking in a clear ‘no’._

_Dean sighs and pats the space next to him, pulling back the covers to invite Sammy in.   Sam doesn’t hesitate with the offer and hurries in, like the monsters of his dream are still out to get him.   And Sam’s little body latches onto Dean’s side, anchoring his hand around Dean’s waist._

_“It’s okay,” Dean whispers, reaching up to wipe Sam’s hair away from his eyes.  “I gotcha, nothing is gonna hurt you--I promise.”_

_Dean smiles quietly in the darkness as he feels Sam’s body relax at his words.   Smiles, because in a world as cruel as the one they exist, at least he can have this--at least he can have the power of Sam’s trust.   Dean doesn’t have much, but if he can keep just this, then he considers himself remarkably lucky._

_Stroking Sam’s back, Dean watches and waits for the tell that his little Brother is fast asleep.  It doesn’t take long, it hardly ever does, before Sam’s mouth parts just so and his soft airy snores tickle the side of Dean’s neck._

_Dean lazily traces the skin of Sam’s arm with his thumb, as he thinks about the past few months and the frequency of the nightmares.   If Dean thinks back, there’s been more nights like this than nights where Sam has slept peacefully.   The thought worries itself around Dean’s heart as he looks down and takes in his Brother’s face.   And he swears he’d give anything in this world to just let Sam be safe. Even from the monsters in his mind._

_It’s a couple of days later when they’re passing through some small town in Arizona, that Dean finds himself face to face with the perfect remedy to Sam’s nightmares--a dream catcher._

_Yellow feather-like petals fan the circumference of the circled web of string and Dean feels his chest tighten with the beauty of it.  He lets his eyes take in the green and blue beads that are stringed delicately next to the brown feathers that hang from it.   It’s beautiful._

_Dean traces the webbed string and lets his eyes wander from petal to petal and then back down to the beads that hang from it.   He’s knocked breathless when he realizes that every color is a mirrored reflection of Sammy’s eyes.   It’s as though it were designed specifically for him, as though nothing else could be more perfect.   And he just can’t say no to it._

_Dean spends some of the money he was supposed to go grocery shopping with, to buy the dream catcher.  And parts of him feel guilty for it, but the bigger part knows that he can stuff down peanut butter sandwiches for the rest of time, if it meant Sam would be happy.   It’s a simple sacrifice and one he’d make again in a heartbeat._

_Later that night, Dean hangs the dream catcher above Sam’s bed.   Sam watches him, his eyes bright and curious.   And when Dean is happy with the catcher’s placement, he turns around and sees the half dozen questions that have come to litter Sam’s eyes._

_“Ever hear of a dream catcher, Sammy?” Dean raises his brow._

_Sam looks from him, to the catcher and back again.   “No..”_

_“They catch all of your bad dreams and they keep you safe while you sleep.”_

_Dean watches as Sam inches closer to the hanging sunflowered dream catcher, his hands reaching out to trace the yellow petals and slowly coming down to the hanging beads and feathers._

_“How?”  Sam questions, his little fingers rolling one of the beads between his index finger and thumb._

_“It’s magic.”  Dean replies, an air of mystery in his voice._

_Sam stares at it for a long time, as though he doesn’t believe a silly thing hanging above his bed could ever keep him safe from the darkness of his nightmares._

_“This one is especially magical,” Dean helps.  “It’s one of a kind, because of the sunflower petals.”_

_Sam turns to look at him, listening._

_“Sunflowers worship the sun.  And the sun is the only light that can banish the darkness completely.   So, since you have a sunflower looking out for you, the darkness can never get you, Sammy.”_

_The low light of the hotel room catches a glimmer of tears in Sam’s eyes, as though he’s relieved by the words.   And Dean kneels before his Brother and stares into the only sun he knows._

_“No more nightmares, I promise.”_

_Sam’s little arms lace themselves around Dean’s neck, pulling him into a hug.   “Thank you, Dean.”_

_Over the course of the next few weeks, the catcher is pinned over every bed that Sam sleeps in.  Every morning Dean asks him about nightmares and Sam just shakes his head ‘no’.   The light in Sam’s eyes, grows in leaps and bounds.  And Dean decides to call it ‘faith’._

_Faith in the light, in life, and in Dean._

_Several years later, when Sam is packing for Stanford, the catcher is put into his bag quietly and neither of them say a word about it.  Because in their hearts, in already speaks for what they cannot._

 

~//~

 

Dean stares down at Sam, who looks like the visage of something holy, of something to be worshiped.   His hair falls around his face, as his head is bowed, as if in prayer.   If Sam is scared, no one would know, no one would ever guess it, because peace is written so clearly across the kingdom of his cheekbones.   

Sam is the image of faith, as he kneels on the floor, ready for Death to greet him with open arms.   And when the light catches Sam’s lips just right, Dean thinks he could almost look happy.  

As Dean looms over his Brother, something finally breaks in his chest.  Something big and important, like an iceberg crumbling in the Atlantic.  It dismantles and it blows apart and it has him gasping for air.   

 

~//~

 

A nest of vampires brings them out to Anaheim, California.   And as fate would have it, John picks a hotel that’s less than a block from the front gates of Disneyland.   It’s made even more glaringly obvious when a squeaky eight year old voice, belonging to Sam, starts reverberating throughout the car as his face is plastered to the impala’s backseat window as they pass on by.  

“Disneyland, Dee--Disneyland!” Sam shouts, as though John and Dean aren’t just in the front seat.  

Sam’s eyes are as wide as saucers, his cheeks riddled with excitement as he takes in the scale of the park, his little fingers aching around the door handle--so hungry just to experience the joy beyond those gates.   It’s a literal Heaven in the Hell they live in and it’s staring him straight in the face, so close he can almost taste it.  And when Sam trails his tongue across the roof of his mouth, he can almost taste the sickly sweet funnel cake everyone raves about.  

But then John’s voice, gruff and authoritative, breaks all of Sam’s hopes and dreams in one sentence.  “Sit down and buckle up, Sammy--we ain’t here for fun.”

When they’re settled in for the night, John having left to go scope out the case,  Dean tries to coax Sam out of bed with a deck of cards he pocketed at a gas station a few towns over.  “Wanna play slap jack?”  Dean lures, his fingers already breaking the deck and making a show out of shuffling.   

Sam’s body is curled away from Dean and his shoulders are laced with defiance.   And Dean stares at the back of his Brother and wishes with everything he knows, that he could make all of this better for him.   Wishes that a deck of cards could somehow compete with ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’, but knows in the depth of his stomach, that he was dumb for even trying.  

Dean goes to bed that night and waits for Sam’s breathing to even out, for the tension to leave his lungs and for peace to wash over him.   And when he’s sure that Sam’s out for the count, he throws the covers off of his body and swings his legs over the edge of the bed.   He takes a second for the blood to settle in his body and then gets up, footing his boots back on.  

John would probably skin him alive if he knew he left Sam unattended, even for the ten minutes Dean needs, but it’s a shot in the dark that Dean is willing to take.   He walks the half mile up the road and spots the convenience store they drove by earlier.   It’s lit up brightly and it hurts his eyes as he closes in, because it’s a marked contrast from the darkness he was walking in.  

Once he’s inside, he scans the aisles for something to grab his interest.   Before he knows it, he’s got a bag full of funyuns, a couple of snapple peach iced teas, a loaf of bread, and some peanut butter--all of which are Sammy’s favorites.   Dean considers this his ‘make Sammy smile’ splurge.   Because there’s really nothing a little junk food can’t fix, or so he hopes.  

Dean finds himself standing in line, waiting for the people in front of him to pay for their own purchases.   As he stands there, he lets his eyes wander, taking inventory of the random ass knick-knacks they’re selling.   And naturally, everything is an overly regurgitated and corny as hell, Disneyland souvenir.  

Rolling his eyes, Dean shifts the items in his hands and tries to fight the urge to walk over to the stupid fucking park and burn it to the ground.  It’s really too bad it’s not a ghost and you can’t just salt and burn it into the next life, because that would just make things way too easy.  

When it’s his turn, he places the items on the counter and finds himself fixated on pair of mickey ears that are on a shelf behind the attendant.   He was just in a violent fantasy of him walking away from a burning park and now something completely different crosses his mind.   And he wonders if it’d work out. 

When Dean leaves the store, it’s without the peach teas and the funyuns, but in his bag is the bread, peanut butter, and the fucking mickey mouse ears.

The next day goes by slower than molasses dripping from a tree.   John checks in around noon, eats and bathes, gives Sam a scratch on the head and Dean a meaningful ‘keep your eyes open’ look, and then he’s out the door again.  Another hunter picks him up in an old beat up pickup truck and he’s gone just like that.  And then, just as easily,  Sam  returns to the endless reruns of cartoons and Dean returns to playing solitaire by himself.  

Around 8:30pm or so, Dean slyly shoves Sam out the door and he follows closely behind.  

“Where’r we going?” Sam questions with annoyance clear in his voice.  

“You’ll see.”

Sam huffs and drags his feet behind Dean, following helplessly because he’s offered no other choice.

Dean walks through the parking lot, until he spots the impala and he sighs when he sees that she’s parked in the perfect viewpoint of the park.   He leads Sam over to it and then climbs onto the hood. He reaches down for Sam’s hand, to help him up, but Sam just stares back at him with a ‘what-the-heck-are-you-doing’ look engraved into his features.   And Dean can’t help the small chuckle that escapes his lips, because boy is his Brother just as thickheaded as a Taurus should be.  

“You trust me?”  Dean raises his eyebrow and reaches his hand down again.  

And that’s something Sam can’t argue with, because he trusts Dean wholeheartedly.  Trusts Dean more than he trusts the sun to rise every morning.  It’s all he’s ever known,  all he knows to be true and loyal--Dean’s love.  

Sam’s hand clasps Dean’s and Dean hoists him up to sit beside him on the hood.   Their backs press against the windshield and their feet stretch out before them, the cool metal of the impala’s hood beneath them.   

Together they watch as the last rays of the sun disappear beyond the horizon and it’s only truly dark for a few minutes before the first pop of color goes sailing into the sky.   Dean feels Sam’s sharp intake of breath as another flare of color explodes into the dark before them and it’s then that he pulls the mickey ears out of the inside of his jacket and places them atop of Sammy’s head.   

“Wha--” Sam starts, before he feels for what is on his head, his eyes growing five times their size as he feels around the round ears.   He pulls the cap off and looks at it with the simplest of joys written across his face.  

“So, here’s the deal…” Dean says, wrapping his arm around Sam’s shoulder, letting his face lean close to Sam’s ear.   “One day we’ll come back here and we will spend the entire day in that park.  You can eat all the funnel cake you want and I’ll ride all those rides with you a hundred times.”  

Sam stares up at Dean, an unreadable emotion swimming in his eyes.   But Dean just stares back at Sam and waits for Sam’s irises to give in and believe the words he is saying.  

“And even better, we’ll get to see these fireworks up close.”

“Promise?”  Sam whispers, his voice barely audible.  

Dean feels his stomach pool with something he can’t quite name and he swears on his life in that moment to keep this promise, till his last breath--so help him.  “I promise.”

Sam keeps with their tradition and sticks out his left pinky finger, waiting for the deal to be signed.   Dean doesn’t keep him waiting long, lacing his right pinky finger with Sam’s.

When they’re done, Dean places the ears back on top of Sam’s unruly hair and pulls his Brother tightly against him so they watch the rest of Disneyland’s firework show.   Sam’s eyes are wide and excited, every streaming color that breaks into the sky, causing him to gasp.  

Sam watches the sky and Dean gets lost watching the reflection of the fireworks in Sam’s eyes.  

 

~//~

 

Dean is a tornado of muscles working, of knuckles aching to overthrow the dark tide within himself.   The scythe is swinging as his eyes clear of the dusty smoke and all he sees is Sam’s kneeling figure before him.   He’s a breath away from taking Sam’s head, when he uses every ounce of strength he can muster to change the course of his swings throw.   And as the blade closes in on his Brother’s bowed head, he closes his eyes, his chest tightening with panic.  

His eyes are still closed when the blade of the scythe connects with something solid.   The force of the blade going through, takes Dean by surprise and suddenly he feels sick to his stomach.  He wishes himself blind, so he’d never have to pry his lids open and face the reality of what he’s done.  There’s no coming back from that image and he knows it with every fiber of his being.  

“God, Sammy.” Dean whispers hoarsely, his fingers still clutching the handle of the blade.   

Tears rise from deep within him and they pound behind his eyelashes, a dam ready to break.

“Dean?” It’s Sam’s voice, and it sounds just a shocked as Dean is to hear it.  

Dean’s eyes open with the sound of Sam’s voice and he’s confronted by the dissipating image of Death before him, his own scythe being used to kill him.  And if the situation weren’t as serious as it is, Dean could almost laugh at the irony of this.  Because, ‘killing Death’ is the most fucked up pun he can think of.  

When the scythe clanks to the ground, Dean stands there and feels the ache of his bones, now that they’re his to control once again.   He looks down at the red mark on his arm and contemplates cutting his stupid arm off, thinks about what he was just ready to do--what The Mark convinced him of.   And his stomach swirls with terror, because he was that close from actually following through.  

“Dean..” Sam says and it’s not a question this time, it’s rhetorical.  As though he’s not sure where he stands in the grand balance of things. 

“Jesus, I’m so--so, so fucking sorry, Sam--I--I…” Dean whispers, the tears breaking from his lash line like deep sea divers.  

Turning around, Dean sees Sam who is still kneeling on the ground, his hands clasped in his lap and the memories they made still scattered by his knees.   Dean looks at the yellowed petals and feels his chest hollow out.  From there he scans over the photo strip and feels his fingers curl at his sides, because his body aches to relive that day.  And finally, when he comes to the amulet, an empty sob leaves his mouth--because he truly believed he’d never see it again.

Somehow he stumbles his way to kneel in front of his Brother and Sam just watches him, a glimmer of tears in his own eyes.   They keep each other’s gaze, a million apologies that can never be spoken, being engraved in each other’s minds.   And when Dean breaks the look, his fingers reach for the black string on the ground.  

“You kept this?” Dean’s voice is wrecked and unrecognizable.   “I can’t believe…”

“I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let you let it go either.” Sam whispers quietly.   “I prayed so many nights that maybe you’d want to wear it again someday.”  

Dean picks it up and feels the cool metal kiss the callouses on his palm.   He looks down at the familiar golden face and he can’t help the smile that cracks subtly in the corners of his mouth.  It looks just the same as the Christmas Sam had given it to him; if you didn’t know it’s history, you’d think it’d be brand new.   And Dean lets himself marvel it over for a few more seconds, before he hands it to Sam. 

Sam takes it, a look of defeat in his eyes and Dean immediately curses himself, because of course Sam would immediately expect the worse.  

Dean catches Sam’s eyes and holds him there, telling him without words what he wants him to do.  Telling him that it’s the only way it can ever hang from his neck again, the only way he’d ever feel right wearing it.  Sam gave it to him once and he threw it away, it only makes sense that Sam gives it back to him this time too.  That is, if Sam deems him worthy of it.  

“You want me--” Sam questions, his voice worrying around the symbolism of it all.  “You want me to put it on you?”

Dean nods and gives Sam one last tearful look and then he leans forward to bow his head and wait for the familiar cord to secure him to this earth once again.

Sam’s fingers tremble as they card themselves around the black rope, his hands bringing the cord up and over Dean’s head.   And when it rests against the back of Dean’s neck, he smooths it there and lets his fingers trace the length of it around Dean’s neck, down to his chest.   When his fingers find the golden face, he worries over it with his right forefinger and thumb, before pressing it against Dean’s chest.   

Dean looks up when he feels Sam pressing the face into his chest, as though he’s trying to burn the image of the golden horned promise into Dean’s skin.   Their faces are inches apart and Dean can see the layers of fear, sadness, and doubt that swim in the sun of Sam’s eyes.   Dean stares at each layer there and feels something break open in his chest, something he doesn’t have a name for--something that has been locked away for too long.

There’s not much thought that takes place, before Dean is reaching forward for Sam’s lips.   And Sam helplessly pulls him closer, his fingers still tangled in the cord around Dean’s neck.   They kiss and it’s different than the handful of times they’ve kissed before.   This one is raw and open, it’s soft and desperate, and it has both of them trembling from the intensity of it.  

Dean’s fingers find themselves through Sam’s hair and at the nape of his neck, his tongue dancing across the gate of Sam’s lips, wanting--no--needing more.   His entire body, desperately hungry for the pink flesh inside of his Brother’s mouth.  And when Sam grants him access, he lets himself in and he savors the entirety of Sam’s fleshy teeth palace.  

Sam’s fingers free themselves of the cord, his hands wrapping themselves around the back of Dean’s neck, pulling Dean deeper into him.   It’s as though, he wants to swallow his Brother down, so they can never stand apart again.   Wanting nothing more then to see both of them reflecting back in one image--together, whole.

They kiss, their hearts beating in time and they let themselves get lost in it.  Their lifelong apprehensions are tossed into the wind, the voices in the back of their minds--now silenced.  And as they exchange breaths--the other’s exhale, the only inhale the other could ever need--they let their bodies melt together in all the ways they’ve hungered for.  

And it’s only then, the two of them lost in the deepness of each other’s mouths, that something miraculous begins to happen.   

A slow burn begins in Dean’s arm, it’s a whisper at first and he confuses it with the heat from Sam’s body.  But then it begins to tingle, a slow tickle that slowly morphs into a jagged pain.  It suddenly feels like a knife has cut through his arm and Dean opens his eyes with the shock of it.  

Sam pulls way, his lips swollen from their kiss.  “Dean?”

Dean pulls back and looks down at his glowing arm.  Sam must follow his glance, because they both stop breathing at the same time.   

“Sam.”  Dean worries, his left hand coming to clench around the throbbing pain that surrounds The Mark on his right arm.  

Neither one of them get another word out, before growing lines of light carve themselves up the entirety of Dean’s arm.   Dean’s head falls back with the intensity of what’s happening inside of him. Sparks of golden light fill the air around them and the lines of light travel up Dean’s right arm to his chest, circling around the flesh above his heart.   

Sam gasps at the sight of it, his hands reaching forward to somehow protect his Brother from what is happening.  “Dean!” He shouts, his hands curling around Dean’s shoulders and shaking him, begging him to respond.  

Dean’s eyes roll into the back of his head, his chest lurching forward as the sparks light the room around them.   The flares of light lick the skin of Sam’s arms and hands, but he doesn’t pull away, his mind too focused on Dean’s sudden unresponsiveness.  

“Gahhhh!” Dean roars, his fists clenching at his sides as the lines of glowing golden light course the entirety of his body--every single one of them pulsing for the circle of energy above Dean’s heart.   

The circle intensifies and lifts from Dean’s chest slightly, glowing brightly in the reflection of Sam’s eyes.   Sam swallows as he focuses on it, something inside of him shivering in response.   And just as the circle is about to touch Sam, it explodes, sending light shooting through the expanse of the room around them.  The bulbs in every socket, burst and the windows of the diner, shatter.   The room shakes with power and the explosion throws both Brothers backwards and apart from each other.  And then, the room is propelled into darkness.  

Sam finds himself on his back, a sharp pain in his shoulders and his breathing is ragged and uneven.   What the fuck was that?  But that thought gets quickly overridden, as the thought of Dean comes crossing full center into Sam’s train of thought.

“Dean?”  Sam calls, his body twisting to sit upright.   

He scans the dusty room around them, a neon ‘drink and be happy’ sign is flashing sporadically in the corner by the bar.   And it’s only by that light that he can see the shadow of his Brother’s body, sprawled in a similar fashion that he found himself in.  

“Hey!” Sam shouts desperately as he half crawls-half runs over to Dean’s side.  “Hey! Dean!”  

Dean groans, his legs moving and Sam can’t get his hands on him fast enough.

“Are you alright?”  Sam worries, his chest constricting with the variety of answers that could be returned.  

“What was that?”  Dean’s voice is hoarse, his eyes tearing through the darkness and stapling the question to Sam’s.

Sam looks around the room, sees the shards of glass all over the floor and looks through the windows and feels the soft breeze of dusk, flirt against his cheek.   He doesn’t know what happened, but whatever it was, it was something big.  

“I dont….” Sam turns back to look at his Brother, who is still on his back.   “I don’t know.”

Dean moves to sit up, his face wincing with the pain of moving his body.   Sam’s hands help him up, his eyes roaming the vastness of Dean’s face, worrying him over and making sure he’s okay--that they’re both okay.   Dean just stares back, a little dazed, but somehow manages a small reassuring smile.  

“I’ve heard of seeing fireworks, but damn, Sammy.”  Dean tries to break the tension with a lame joke.  

Sam can’t help but feel a blanket of anxiety leave his body, his shoulders suddenly lighter with the sound of Dean’s ‘piss and vinegar’ voice.   “Shut up.”

Dean’s eyes leave Sam’s and move to scan his own body, because even though he hasn’t vocalized it, there’s something different about him then there was before.   He turns his right arm over and is shocked to see the red mark is gone from his skin.  His left hand comes up to smooth over the skin where it once laid claim to and then feels a burning sensation against his chest.   

Hurriedly he pulls his jacket and flannel away, to expose his undershirt and the necklace that Sam had just given back to him.  But the necklace is not golden as it once was, instead it is red.  

“What?” Dean questions to himself more than anything else.  

Sam stares silently as Dean feels the face in his hands.  It looks just the same, but is now a deep red with golden flakes.   He examines it closely and then lifts his arm to ensure the mark is gone.  

“Do you think the necklace absorbed the mark?” Sam questions, reaching for the red faced token hanging from Dean’s neck.   “I mean, does that even make sense?  Is it even possible?”

Dean stares down at Sam’s hands as they worry over the amulet.  “I think we had something to do with it, too.”  He says absently.   And he’s not even sure what he means by that, but something in his body tells him it’s the truth.  

Sam’s fingers trace softly on the skin that now lies unmarred by the red curse.   He does it quietly, his face a book of emotions and Dean watches him.  

“What made you stop?” The question sounds absurd in the moment and it throws Dean for a second before he gathers what Sam means by it.  

Dean reaches for Sam’s hands and wraps them in his own.   He traces his thumb over Sam’s knuckles and searches for the words that tangle themselves in the back of his throat.  He wills his tongue to move, to make sound, but it lies in the back of his throat defiantly.   But then a single word comes roaring out of Dean’s pelvis, up his chest and comes crawling out of his mouth with a startling rawness. 

“You.”

Sam flits his eyes up and his adam’s apple bobs with the emotion of such a simple word.  He stares into the sky of his Brother’s eyes and he sees the undeniable truth behind that word.  

“I made a promise to you once and I’m gonna keep it.”  Dean adds, not bothering to elaborate on what exactly he means.  

But Sam seems contented with those words, defining them in his own way.   And Dean is shocked when it’s  Sam’s lips that find themselves against his this time.  

They kiss and it’s of the delicate variety.  Their lips, softly pressed together, becomes the seal on the history of reasons that bind them together so profoundly--that not even Heaven or Hell, could destroy them or tear them apart.  

 

________________________

 

A week later, they find themselves on the road and heading west.   Sam asks Dean a half dozen times where they’re going, but Dean just smiles lazily and says something vaguely, like--”The beach.”  And Sam presses for a better definition of what that means, but Dean just turns up the AC/DC and thumps his thumbs to the beat against the steering wheel.  

It takes them a day and a half, but eventually they arrive at their destination.   

Dean gets a flare of deja vu as they pass the park, just like so many years ago.  He looks over at Sam as they pass it and sees his Brother work through something in his mind.  But Dean is ultimately reassured by the sight of Sam’s dimple, cutely etching itself into the shadow on Sam’s cheek.  

When they park in front of the same hotel they stayed in when they were little, it’s then that Sam looks over at Dean and smiles like the sun itself was born from his lips.   But neither one of them say a word as they rent a room and unload the car.  Both of them working together as they have their entire lives, but this time, it’s not for a hunt.   This time, it’s for them.  

Dean leaves Sam to shower and makes his way back down to the hotel office, where he buys park hopper tickets and a postcard.  The tickets are good for three days and Dean feels like that’s a good length of time.  He nods his thanks at the clerk and makes his way out and heads back to the parking lot where Baby is parked.   

He fetches his keys from his pocket and rounds the back of his car, to open the trunk.   Dean shoves the tickets into his back pocket and digs around in the trunk for something, his fingers working furiously, because he knows that what he’s looking for is in there somewhere.  

“Ah.”   Dean sounds, his eyes having found what he was looking for.   

He picks the item out and shoves it inside his inner coat pocket, before closing the trunk.  

When he gets back inside the hotel room, Sam is waiting for him.  “Feel better?” He asks.  

Sam nodds.  “Yea, anyone would feel better after having washed two days worth of car camping off of them.”  

“Touché.” Dean laughs, fetching the postcard out of his back pocket and throws it on the table where Sam sits.  

Sam looks down at the pristine waters of Crescent Bay, California.   He smiles and can’t help but let a laugh escape his lips.  “What’s this?”  

“Well,”  Dean starts, sarcasm already written across his face.  “I told you we were going to the beach.  I didn’t want to disappoint.”

Sam breaks into a side splitting laughter, more so because his Brother is the biggest idiot to ever idiot, than anything else.   And when Dean joins in, their laughter fills the room and they both could swear that the world truly feels carefree for the first time in their entire lives.   

~

Later that afternoon, they find themselves in front of the magical gates Dean had always promised Sam that they would return to.   And as they stand there, Sam looking at the grandness of Disneyland, Dean pulls out the mickey ears from so long ago and meaningfully places them on top of Sam’s head.  

“What is--” Sam goes to ask, his hands feeling for what is on his head.  

A pool of emotion swells in Sam’s eyes as he recognizes what they are.   Sure his head is a bit bigger and the ears a little smaller, but Sam knows it’s the same hat from when they were younger.  His chest expands with something he doesn’t have a name for and it only solidifies itself when he feels Dean’s fingers card through his own.  

“A promise, is a promise.” Dean winks, giving Sam’s hand a gentle squeeze.  

Sam is thirty-two years old, but when he walks through the gates, his old mickey ears atop his head and Dean’s hand in his--he's that eight year old kid again.  And he looks over at Dean, the sun a halo around his head and says, “Thanks, Dean.”


	2. Epilogue

The sun is setting and their feet ache from walking all day, but neither one complains, they just catch each other’s eyes and smile.  Both of them relishing in the aches of their bones, because it means they’re here--that they’re finally doing something just for them.  

Dean is downing his second peanut butter and jelly soda from the Carnation Cafe and Sam is busy digging into what he considers ‘heaven in a cup’, which is called a dole whip by everyone else.   And Dean nearly loses a finger when he tries to swipe a taste, Sam snarling hastily, saying something along the lines of, ‘go get your fucking own.’  But Dean just noisily slurps his soda and makes a face at Sam.  

“It’s been five hours and we haven’t even seen the mouse,” Dean states suddenly.  He sounds like a kid who bought a cereal box just for the prize, only to find that there was nothing inside.  

Sam smiles around his spoon and speaks with a mouthful of his dole whip, “We have two more days.  We’ll see him.”  He pats Dean’s back condescendingly and laughs when Dean throws a ‘fuck you’ glare back his way.  

“Tryna do something nice for my Brother and this is what I get in return.”  Dean says, turning away from Sam slightly in a fake act of hurt feelings.  

When cold lips press against his cheek, Dean almost drops his cup on the ground.  

“That better?” Sam says slyly, his lips still feathering the side of Dean’s cheek.  

Dean clears his throat and can only manage a somewhat audible, “Mmhmm.”  He meets Sam’s eyes and can feel the heat of a blush curling its way around his cheeks.

The moment is broken however, when there’s a sudden burst of kids screaming from behind them.  In perfect synchronization, they both turn to look at what is causing the commotion, only to see a beautifully dressed, Belle, in her yellow gown  and a sea of kids and their parents swarming her for autographs and pictures.  

“C’mon, Sammy.”  Dean’s arm loops through his Brother’s, pulling him in Belle’s direction.  

Sam almost trips over his own shoes with the sudden jolt of movement, but he catches himself and is moving with Dean.  “What are you doing?” Sam questions, shoving his spoon into the remainder of his uneaten dole whip.  

Dean doesn’t answer Sam with words, but instead just pushes him into the sea of kids, who are  waiting for their turn with Belle.  Sam looks behind him and sees Dean waving him forward and there must be a scowl on his face, because Dean laughs in response--like he’s so damn proud of himself.

“‘Scuse me Mister!”  A little blonde girl huffs as she pushes past Sam’s long legs.  

Sam looks forward and sees exactly four kids in front of him and notices the girl dressed as Belle, is eyeing him curiously.  He knows he stands out obnoxiously, most of these kids not being much taller than his knees.  And he curses himself in the moment, his cheeks filling with pink, because yea this is all just a little too ridiculous.  

He’s turning around to make his escape, when Dean gives him a ‘don’t even’ look, his cellphone already out to capture a picture.   So Sam sighs and turns around again to wait his turn.  

“Well, hello there!” Belle finally greets him, her eyes bright and childlike.  “You are as tall as every Prince Charming I’ve ever read about!”  She smiles and holds her arms open, inviting Sam in.  

“Uh--um, thanks….” Sam says awkwardly, his arm flinging nervously around Belle, his eyes searching for Dean.  

“Got it!” Dean yells after a few seconds, his grin as wide as the park as he brings his phone screen closer to his face--obviously loving what he sees.  

And Sam is quick to disentangle himself from Belle, muttering a string of ‘thank yous’ and ‘im so sorrys’ behind him.   

“Hey there, Prince Charming…” Dean mutters when Sam is in close range.   

Sam gives an annoyed look, but it’s wiped from his face when he feels Dean’s fingers slide through his right hand, giving a small, but reassuring squeeze.  Sam is stripped bare of all previous anxiousness and is immediately calmed.  And when Dean smiles, Sam knows that the fading sunset behind Dean, could never be as beautiful as his Brother.  Knows that the sun will rise and fall every single day, just trying, but that it’d never succeed.  Because how could it?

“Look…” Dean flashes the screen of his phone in Sam’s direction.  “I think this one's a keeper.”

Sam stares down at the picture and sees him standing there, basically towering over Belle, with a lopsided grin on his face, his half eaten dole whip in his free hand and his little mickey ears still perched atop of his head.   And for everything inside of him that should want to punch Dean in the shoulder and yell at him to delete it, he instead gives his Brother an equally blinding smile.  Because, yes, Sam has waited his entire life for these moments, but so has Dean.  And Sam knows, if he was eight, Dean would have a disposable camera instead and the film would be littered with gag worthy poses of Sam and every character Dean could find.  

“I think you’re right.”  Sam winks, squeezing Dean’s hand in response.  

 

~

It’s completely dark when Sam spots the little machine with a red curtain and it makes him think about the last time he saw one.   Makes his wallet burn in his back pocket, because the proof of that time is still etched into glossy paper and folded carefully inside of it.  And it only burns more furiously as they get closer to it.  

Dean takes them right toward the deserted photo booth without even realizing it.  But when Sam stops and turns to look at it, like he’s a kid looking at an aisle of candy, it’s only then that Dean turns to see what has grabbed Sam’s attention.  

“Wha--?” Dean begins, but interrupts himself when he sees the example photos on the outside of the booth.  “Oh.”

Sam lets go of Dean’s hand and wrings his fingers at the nape of his neck, because suddenly he feels like he’s fourteen and somehow nervously asking Dean for this again.  He can feel his Brother look at him, can feel his Brother’s eyes trail across the anxious twitch at the corner of his lips and he knows Dean can see everything that is coursing within him in that moment.  It makes Sam feel naked for the whole world to see;  Sam’s whole world consisting of just Dean.

“We don’t--” Sam begs his tongue to work.  “We don’t have to.”

“Are you kidding?” Dean whispers back, not giving Sam a second to keep thinking like that.  “C’mon, Sammy…”

Dean pulls back the curtain and lets himself into the tiny booth.  And Sam is left standing outside, their eyes catching right before the curtain falls closed.   

Sam’s heart races, his palms sweaty and he keeps telling himself over and over that it’s not a big deal, but he’s having a hard time convincing himself.  Because the way his ribs stretch with every breath, makes him feel like everything he knows is balancing on the tip of a pen.  Everything being, him and Dean, and the balance is of their hearts, still clinging to each other and pretending they’re not falling as hard as they appear to be.

“You comin’, Samantha?” Dean’s voice is low, just loud enough for Sam to hear.  “Gonna keep a guy waiting forever, or what?”

There’s a laugh in the back of Sam’s throat suddenly and it dispels the thoughts that were tangling themselves on the back of his tongue.  Leave it to Dean to know what Sam needs to be pulled out of his mind and back into reality.  Sam doesn’t say it, but his heart beats a ‘thank you’ to his Brother and he smiles to make it real.  

Sam pulls back the curtain and fits himself in next to Dean.   The space is tiny in comparison and between Dean’s broad shoulders and Sam’s long legs, it’s a tight fit.   It’s uncomfortable at first, but then Dean Shifts his weight to the right, allowing his left arm to come up and find itself around the back of Sam’s shoulders.   It puts them closer together, but it feels more comfortable than before.  

“Ready?” Dean raises his eyebrow, their reflections on the black screen in front of them.  

Sam gives a small reassuring smile, his dimples digging deep with sincerity.  “Been ready all my life, Dean.”  It’s a confession and Sam lets it soak the air around them.   Lets it dig into their collarbones and make homes in the castles of their hearts.  

Dean feeds the machine, his fingers hastily pressing buttons and just like so long ago a countdown appears on the screen.  It’s counts down from three and the first picture is snapped, the two of them just smiling cheesily at the screen.  When the countdown reappears, Dean shifts his weight away from Sam, his upper body turning to face him.  Sam looks straight into the field of green he’s always loved and the flash goes off.   The countdown begins again and Dean’s hands come up to both sides of Sam’s cheeks, his thumbs smoothing circles there and the flash goes off.   Dean leans into Sam, their lips a whisper apart and it feels like their entire lives is contained within this box, another flash.    The last countdown appears and their lips collide together in a melt of raw emotions.  Sam lifts his hand and places it at the base of Dean’s neck, letting his fingers curl against the sensitive skin there and the last flash illuminates them.  

The flashes have stopped, but their kiss only deepens.   Dean is pulling Sam in and down, his fingers aching at the hollow of Sam’s throat, wanting and asking for more.  Sam doesn’t deny him, his mouth parting to allow Dean fully in.  Every bone in Sam’s body sighs with a resounding ‘yes’ and it verbalizes itself on the back of his tongue.  

And when their mouths have been cherished, Sam feels Dean leave his wanting mouth in pursuit of the pulse point at his throat.   When Dean licks there, Sam feels his entire soul shift within his skin.  Sam’s fingers dig at the back of Dean’s head and Dean latches his lips there, his mouth sucking slightly as his teeth graze Sam’s flesh.  It’s too much and not enough all in the same moment.  

Dean worries a little mark at Sam’s throat and then kisses his way back up to Sam’s still parted lips, their breaths heavy and their bodies, impossibly hot.  They’re treading a similar line that they’ve only had courage to walk a few times prior in their lives.   And this time, this time it feels different.   Feels like both of them are all hands on the deck, feels like if this ship is going down--then let both of them drown.   Let their final breaths, be only of each other’s exhales.  

It’s not until there’s a knock on the outside of the booth, that they’re both pulled back to reality.  Both of them open their eyes for the first time in minutes and it’s the sun and the sunflower, forever reaching for each other.   Their hands are tangled in each other and their fingers already miss the heat of each other’s bodies.   

When they pull away from each other, they’re both dazed and a bit starstruck.   Both of them temporarily lost in their own minds as they both try to fix themselves to be presentable for whatever or whoever awaits them on the outside of the booth.  And when Sam exits first, he’s eye for eye with an angry dad and his little girl.   Sam can only offer a ‘sorry’ smile as he moves away from the booth, the feeling of Dean’s shadow behind him.  

“Oh, shit--wait!” Dean calls when they’re a good pace of steps away.  

Sam turns to see Dean running back for the photo booth.   Watches as Dean bends down to retrieve their forgotten photo strip and Sam quietly curses the air around them, because how could they forget?  Yet, the burn of his lips, tells him just how.  

Dean stares at the pictures the entire way back to where Sam stands and Sam’s insides spin with curiosity.   And he doesn’t get to satisfy it until seconds later, when Dean hands it over to him.  

Sam looks down at the pictures and feels the wind leave his lungs.   Because here they are, after all this time, and he’s got his mickey ears, his Brother’s lips against his and the entirety of Disneyland around them.  

The heat of tears prick the back of his eyes, as an unfamiliar emotion crawls up his torso and explodes in his chest.   It’s bold and bright and so overwhelming, it has him breathless and holding back a fragile sob.   And when he looks back up to meet Dean’s knowing eyes, he finds that the emotion’s name is ‘happiness’--the true and all encompassing kind.

“Here.”  Sam whispers, handing the new photo strip back over to Dean.   “I’ll let you keep this one.”

Dean stares down at Sam’s hand, his throat working through words he’s trying to say.  But the more he tries, the more his tongue escapes him.   Maybe there’s no words for this gift, none in any dictionary you could find.  None that could wrap up this moment and tie it together so meaningfully.  All Dean can do, is pull out his own wallet and place the strip inside, his thumb carding along their glossy faces as he refolds the wallet and sticks it back in his pocket.

Sam catches the shy smile on Dean’s lips and it reads, ‘thank you’.   And without missing a beat, Sam reaches for Dean’s hand, entwining their fingers and it says, ‘you’re welcome’.  

Seconds later, the night sky is lit up in streaming colors.   Both Sam and Dean crane their necks to witness the exploding confetti of light that decorates the sky.   And though they’re surrounded by a sea of people, it feels like it’s just the two of them.  Feels like they’re eight and twelve, the entire sky lit up just for them.   An ocean of reds, blues, purples, and greens roaring against the shores of their eyes.   

If you asked either one what they were thinking, they’d both reply just the same.

And it'd sound nothing less than a resounding chorus of, ‘Dreams do come true.’


End file.
